Main news for 15 November 2019

What is Ezra's refusal of an escort: witness to God or unnecessary risk? The roads in Palestine in those times were truly dangerous, and the valuables traveling with the caravan were great. But it had been publicly declared that the God of Israel was with those who were going, that He would preserve them on the way. To ask for an escort after such declarations would mean signing one's name to the admission that all these declarations had been empty boasting. They had to set out without an escort.

But is this only a desire to save face? For those who were going, their safe arrival in Jerusalem would also mean that their God was truly with them. Every such situation, or one like it, proves double-sided: the desire to boast is characteristic of everyone to one degree or another, and only God sees the boundary between boasting and real confidence in God's providence and trust in Him.

God knows, but a person may not know. And he will never know if he does not decide to risk. Such risk is always a question posed to God: are You with us? Someone would call this a sin and say that to act this way means to tempt God. But here too everything is determined by the measure of a person's resolve and the measure of his trust in God.

Everything depends on whether the traveler believes, in that depth of his heart which the person himself barely senses in himself and which God sees completely clearly, that God is truly with him, or whether he doubts and wants to receive proof of God's love for him. God may allow the doubtful and mistrusting person serious problems on a dangerous road; the one who trusts without doubts He will most likely bring to the goal without losses, though not necessarily without trials.

As is clear, Ezra turned out to be among the faithful, as did his companions. Thanks to this faithfulness, not only all their activity in Jerusalem became a witness, but also their very journey to the place where God had called them.